


Love is War

by Anonymous



Category: Euostrath's Descent
Genre: Other, war and food metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27519025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "Apples are the sins of love manifested and for the cosmic phantom, they have devoured, gnawed, gorged upon these fruits with stained claws."Iketasos is certainly a beast in their own right; they are the beast you invite to your bed to sedate your self-loathe and starvation for affection. They are the beast that consumes to be the consumer therefore it was only a matter of time before they consumed Nyleein.
Relationships: Iketasos/Nyleein
Collections: anonymous





	Love is War

Iketasos does _ not  _ survive: they exist and die and exist and die. It is a flawless battle strategy against the visceral agony of feeling loss, of remorse. They’ve seen that more than enough times in the eyes of the dying and dead; they need not feel it themself. 

To the old soul phantom, love means survival and endurance or at least a mechanism of it. This is what they have gleaned off of others who have fallen in love countlessly. In the eyes of something as abhorrent (but war-familiar) as them, Iketasos finds love a trivial, fleeting thing that merely serves as advantages on the battle-field of life. Love is but a pawn to manipulate across the checkerboard. To love a hobby or another entity is to offer weaknesses and to a cold, near-immaterial ghost, there should be no weaknesses to be had; after all, undead abominations cannot feel. Should not feel.

A phantom strategist like them should know this. But yet -- they feel. Iketasos  _ does. _

They feel Nyleein’s war-worn skin when its bathed in forgiving rosy sunlight as he rolls his head to the side, curling his lips into something unbidden and private. Intimate. They feel the thrumb of the Euostrath’s native drawl (unfathomably raw and real) in their hollow chest whenever he murmurs affection to something as ghastly as them. 

No matter what lies or reports Iketasos tells themself, they know that their words are like rotting apples in the heat of the all-knowing sun. Apples are the sins of love manifested and for the cosmic phantom, they have devoured, gnawed,  _ gorged  _ upon these fruits with stained claws. 

It’s pitiful. It’s almost like they have never tasted something so saccharine before. (They have not).

Nyleein makes them  _ feel  _ and Iketasos cannot abstain from this newfound gluttony. For an abomination as sinfully apathetic as they are, Iketasos wants to lick and bite every fiber of his branded flesh; to mar him with evidence of their strategic advances; to mark their liege banners on that battle-scarred mind map. And in turn, he mirrors their own actions. Of course, the Euostrath of Fate would do so -- he is a veterinarian of wars (but perhaps not this one fashioned out of coy flirts and tender smiles, the phantom mused as they intertwine his uncertain hands with their own)

One simply does not enter war without the signs of defeat or success (in love, aren’t those two conditions the same anyway?) and they who now  _ love _ , know both can taste sweet. Iketasos can no longer evade and perry the spectral words that taunt them over their declaration of what love means. 

Love is war. To love Nyleein is a justification for Iketasos to survive and endure  _ more _ , in this world. They are whole and complete without him but another reason to stay longer is a warm welcome for Iketasos’ abyssal core. Of course, he will not be the sole reason they persist on, however, with all that they have lost and will lose, the apparition fears they will not win this battle. 

He’s the only one who has ever truly  _ stayed.  _


End file.
